[envelope back] [written in pencil vertically on left side] Sister [underline] Susies[/underline]- Candy Party- Sisters [underline] Mary’s [/underline]
[letter] Farmington Avenue, Hartford.
3/28/74
My Dear Andrews: Dialect is your forte, not logic, [strikethrough] my son [/strikethrough] my boy. You get up a painstaking + excellent argument to show that if it weren’t for [underline]me,[/underline] (+ it’s uniquely complimentary, I grant you) you couldn’t fol- low your lucrative lec- turing, but would have to retire from the plat- form; that you use
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my stuff with happy ef- fect + that it proves a kind of inexhaustible bank account to you. And then [strikethrough] upon [/strikethrough] from that able argument you draw the curious deduction that all this places me in your debt! My God, what a light the law has lost in you, my boy! But Chaff [sic] aside, old friend, I [underline] can’t [/underline] do the thing you wish me to do. I am buried
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up to the eyes in work, + that work is standing still; for my wife is ill + has been for some little time; we have to deny ourselves + close the house against all visitors. I am just waiting + watching for a time when I may venture to remove my tribe to Elmira, N.Y., for the summer + get away from the
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cares + worries of housekeeping. When I do get to work again I shall know how to make the most of the minutes. Hope to catch a glimpse of you at the Lotos as we pass through the city - as we hope to do within a fort- night, if the madam im- proves. Ys Ever S. L. Clemens
[envelope front address]
W. A Andrews Esq. (Dialecter,) Lotos Club 2 Irving Place New York
